New Zealand’s openers yesterday went on a six-hitting blitz to thrash Pakistan by five wickets and go 2-0 up in their Twenty20 series.
The hosts reached 137-5 with 11 balls to spare in Dunedin to take control of the five-match series after Pakistan posted 135-9 off 15 overs in a rain-reduced second match.
New Zealand’s highlight was a ferocious opening stand between Tim Seifert and Finn Allen in which seven of the first eight scoring shots were sixes.
Photo: AFP
Remarkably, Seifert played out a maiden off Shaheen Shah Afridi’s opening over before Allen cleared the small University Oval boundary three times in the second over, bowled by Mohammad Ali.
Seifert then smashed 26 off Afridi’s second over, including four sixes.
Seifert, who scored 44 in the nine-wicket win in Christchurch on Sunday, departed on 45 off 22 balls.
Photo: AFP
Allen fell soon afterwards for 38 off 16, with the openers hammering five sixes each.
White ball specialist Allen said both batsmen are naturally big hitters and took a simple mindset into the run chase.
“We just looked to be positive, try and get ahead of the chase early and make it easy for our middle order to finish it off,” said Allen, who was confident they could run down the target.
“It’s kind of hard to assess in a 15 over game, but defending out here is pretty tough. Those are small boundaries so the ball tends to fly a bit here, so I think maybe 170 would have been competitive,” he said.
Four New Zealand wickets fell in the space of four overs midway through the chase before Mitch Hay’s unbeaten 21 made the outcome safe.
Earlier, captain Salman Agha scored with 46 off 28 balls, launching a recovery after Pakistan were sent in and lost opener Hasan Nawaz without scoring for the second time in the series.
They were 19-2 in the fourth over before the skipper embarked on a knock that featured four fours and three sixes.
Shadab Khan was aggressive in the middle order with 26 off 14 balls and Afridi was 22 not out off 14.
Four New Zealand bowlers took two wickets, including seamer Ben Sears and all-rounder Jimmy Neesham, who were both recalled in the places of Tim Robinson and Kyle Jamieson.
New Zealand can wrap up the series if victorious in Game 3 in Auckland on Friday.
Japanese badminton star Chiharu Shida on Tuesday told Chinese fans to “stop stalking” her, adding that she was “very scared” by the unwanted attention. Shida, who won women’s doubles bronze at the Paris Olympics last year, has a strong following in China partly because of her engagement with the local culture. The 27-year-old, currently competing at the Badminton Asia Championships in Ningbo, China, has been dubbed the “Badminton Goddess” by fans and media. She hit out at some supporters on Tuesday, accusing them in an Instagram post of taking their fandom too far. “Every time we compete in China we always experience the harm
Two people died on Thursday after fans and police clashed outside the Estadio Monumental in Santiago ahead of a game in South America’s Copa Libertadores, Chilean authorities said. The fatalities happened shortly before the match between Chile’s Colo-Colo and Brazilian club Fortaleza, when police blocked about 100 fans when they attempted to enter the stadium. There were conflicting accounts of how the fatalities occurred, with local media reporting that one of the dead was a 13-year-old boy. The other victim was an 18-year-old woman, according to a relative at the hospital where she was treated. The fans died after being caught underneath a
A potential European league could be a gold mine for the NBA as the top-flight North American league looks to muscle its way into a deep pool of talent across the Atlantic Ocean. The NBA is exploring the launch of a European league with world basketball governing body FIBA as a partner, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said last week, with an eye toward a 16-team format made up of 12 permanent clubs and four qualifiers. The continent’s longstanding Euroleague quickly signaled its readiness to enter into talks with the NBA, even as it has balked at the idea of another league in
Hans Niemann, the chess grand master at the heart of an alleged cheating scandal, has yet to provide an explanation on his late withdrawal from the Freestyle Grand Slam in Paris. Niemann, who was accused of cheating by world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen in 2023 before the matter was settled outside court, received a wild card for the event, but informed organizers he was pulling out for “personal reasons” less than 48 hours before the start of the 12-player tournament. “I texted him on Friday at 7pm. I said: ‘Hans, we’re already here. Are you here as well?’ And he read the
RSS